What is the Beloved Community? Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described
the triple evils of racism, militarization, and economic exploitation. The
Beloved Community is free of these three evils: it is anti-racist, practices
active non-violence, and reconciles historical economic injustices. But it also
values the positive attributes that all communities should be able to enjoy,
ones that rejuvenate the earth and people’s health and wholeness. Ones that regenerate the soils by
sequestering carbon back into the ground, and value people over profits,
allowing humans to simply consume foods with nutrients that promote health.
Instead, foods are processed and packaged with toxins, additives, and an
imbalance of nutrients that do not match the level of physical activity
undertaken by most people in today’s society.
We have industrialized food systems that have been built through
systemic racism, on the backs of slave labor - fertilized with chemicals
produced for warfare - that degrade health and impoverish soil, people and
planet. While 1.5 billion acres of land
was stolen from Indigenous nations in the U.S. between 1776 and 1887[1],
today, “white people own 98 percent of all farmland, or about 50 times the
number of acres owned by people of color.”[2] Meanwhile, “over 60 percent of farmworkers
are people of color, largely Latinx.”[3] 1.34% of farmers in the United States are
Black, while the Black population across the country is around 13.4%.”[4]
Of the 139 Black farmers among the over 57,000 farmers in New York State, as of
the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture, Black farmers earned a total net cash farm
income of -$906, while white farmers earned $42,875.[5]
The Beloved Community is one that supports Black,
Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in owning and farming land that allows
them to produce wealth and grow food that can be used to nourish communities.
It is one that supports Black people in reclaiming their African roots and
allows us to share across cultures without assuming that the privileged with education,
food, and racist cultural practices should dominate society.
We achieve the Beloved Community by abiding by the King
Philosophy. The King Philosophy includes the Triple Evils, Six Principles of
Nonviolence, Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change and the Beloved Community.[6]We also acknowledge the steps for anti-racist
practices outlined by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi in “How to Be an Anti-Racist.”
Mindful
Eating for the Beloved Community, then, is a way of eating conscientiously.
It entails understanding and recognizing our interconnectedness and
relationships at a profoundly deep level, so much so that we see the food we
eat and the systems that food comes from is tied to the well-being of our
brothers and sisters of different ethnic and economic backgrounds than our own,
in different parts of our country and different countries altogether.It is a way of eating that starts with
gratitude for the food in front of us - but does not stop there. It
acknowledges that people have access to food of differing nutrient quality
depending on their level of privilege, which leads to different health outcomes
among different populations.It
acknowledges that companies that own the land and production resources have the
most control over the wealth and health of communities. It acknowledges that
people of color have less access to the resources that would enable them to own
and lead companies, and are often relegated to positions that the privileged do
not want, such as harvesting the food in dangerous working conditions, without
being provided adequate wages or healthcare benefits.Mindful Eating for the Beloved Community
entails considering all of these factors mindfully as we eat the food in front
of us, but then going a step further to use the nourishment from the food eaten
to sustain us in actualizing systemic changes to correct these injustices.
Catholics held a Day of Action for Migrant Children on
Wednesday. We wrote prayers for the children
on strips of fabric and tied them to a metal fence representing the cages that
kids are being kept in at the immigrant detention centers. Jean Stokan from the
Sisters of Mercy spoke about the hypocrisy of the U.S. government, funding and
fueling so much of the violence outbreaking in Central America, meanwhile we
won’t even let migrants escaping the violence to find refuge in the U.S.
without putting them in cages, without proper hygiene, food or water, and keeping
them separated from their parents. “Child
detention is illegal under international law and causes serious mental,
physical, and emotional health complications.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics and many other public
health organizations have declared the policies towards immigrants a public
health crisis. Immigrant policing has been found to negatively impact
trust of government health information including vaccination
of children. The children are
experiencing psychological trauma and may experience long-term mental health effects
due to the detention and separation. “The experiences may also exacerbate
prior exposure to traumas in the home country (eg, violence) and during
migration (eg, extortion).” The
children are not getting appropriate medical care; are forced to be in situations
of poor sanitation and living conditions, and sit through long detention
periods without the stimulation necessary to promote healthy child development.
AAP past-president, Dr. Colleen Kraft, said “Separating parents from their kids
at the border contradicts everything we know about children's welfare.”
Indeed, any human rights crisis is a public health crisis,
when people are not provided with the means by which they need to live
dignified lives with nourishing food, clean water, clean air, shelter, clothing,
bodily autonomy, and anything else they need to maintain hygiene and safety.
Meanwhile, the public health community is also fighting for Child
Nutrition Reauthorization, and ensuring the future of school wellness in New
York State. Almost 90% of school
districts in New York State are missing at least one element of a comprehensive
school wellness policy, as measured by the WELLSAT tool from the Rudd Center
for Food Policy and Obesity. New York City
school wellness advocates are trying to tackle support for school wellness,
better school food and nutrition education at the city, state, and federal
levels right now. At the state level through
the WELL Campaign, we want to see a
model state school wellness policy that incorporates mental health and social
and emotional learning alongside standards for school food, nutrition education,
physical activity and physical education.
And yet, the battle against inhumane immigration policies
towards children seems totally disconnected from the battle for child health
and well-being in schools. Why can’t we see
these efforts for the dignity & well-being of children as all connected,
and work on them together? Surely the
faith community knows that public health advocates working on child nutrition
also don’t want to see kids in cages, right?
Perhaps you think that nutrition education is not as
important as immigration policies and ending child detention. (I for one have
not seen many Catholic organizations promoting nutrition education, with
exceptions including Altagracia Faith & Justice works in Northern Manhattan
and the Mercy Center in the South Bronx - organizations serving immigrant communities while also protesting the root causes that cause people to have to flee their countries in the first place.)
We cannot forget that everything is
connected. The Amazon and other
rainforest areas are being destroyed to clear land for cattle that is used to
produce fast food, palm trees to create an unhealthy oil which is used as a
stabilizer for processed foods, and other consumer products such as paper,
furniture and clothing which our consumeristic society is so dependent on. If we do not each take a serious look at our
lifestyles and examine how they are contributing to the destruction of human
livelihoods and lives, and teach children to do the same, we will continue to
perpetuate the crises in front of us. We live in an interconnected world and
all our actions have consequences. We are called to co-create with our Creator,
not destroy. Youth are striking for the
climate, some every Friday through the Fridays
for Future movement, and some are just gearing up specifically for September
20.
There are ways these youth can take action
in their own schools though; we need to be proactive in our actions, not just
resistant. The Tisch Center for Food,
Education and Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University has created a
handout about what youth can do to demand more sustainability solutions in
their schools. This could take the form of starting a school garden, participating
in Meatless Mondays, campaigning for a Green Team, advocating for food and
nutrition education, or decreasing food waste from school lunch.
At the end of a “Climate Emergency and the Green New Deal”
event at Riverside Church, a Fridays for Future climate strike march
video was played with a backdrop of music from the song Bella Ciao which was used to protest the Nazis (re-written with lyrics to protest climate change), followed
by the audience singing along. This was a chilling reminder of the connection
between genocide and environmental destruction, which is all too close to home
in the United States, with the founding of this country being at the expense of
so many Native American lives, and too timely, with the killing of indigenous
peoples in the Amazon and in other rainforests where the native peoples rely on
the rainforests for their livelihoods.
I have been encouraged to see youth leadership in promoting peace
and living in harmony with creation, such as the Interfaith Youth Forum for
Environment & Peace organized by JPIC Franciscans Africa. However, the work of JPIC Franciscans Africa
and the work of many other religious groups across the world are doing to promote
this harmony is deeply underfunded. For now,
I have created a Go
Fund Me page for JPIC Franciscans Africa, with hope and prayers that sufficient
funds can be raised by the time of their 2019 youth forum which will be held during
the Global Climate Strike on 20 September and World Peace Day on 21 September.
The report about my trip to Kenya for the Laudato Si Generation conference, which I wrote
about recently, has been translated into Spanish,
French
and Italian
by the International Council of the Secular Franciscan Order.
Recognizing the divide and silos between the public health
community and faith-rooted social justice advocates, who seem to rarely work
together for the same causes, several colleagues and I have decided to start the
Interfaith Public Health Network, which seeks to engage and mobilize faith
communities to improve population health, by addressing the underlying
determinants of health (social, commercial, environmental, and political)
through connecting, convening, cultivating, and catalyzing. We want to bring the voices of healthcare
advocates and the faith community together to advocate for things such as reduced emissions
which lead to child asthma, promote agroecology projects and appreciation of
plant-based meals which support the health of environment and people, support
mental health services for people in need, and improve gun violence prevention
measures.
During a visit to New York by Olivier van Beeman
from the Netherlands, author of the book “Heineken
in Africa” the Interfaith Public Health Network organized an event with
Olivier van Beeman along with Minister Onleilove Alston and Dr. Nicholas
Freudenberg at the CUNY School of Public Health. We brought together the faith
and public health communities to learn about the insidious practices of a
multinational corporation that takes advantage of government tax loopholes in
order to make its profits at the expense of the African community. Some governments are even intertwined with
the company, such as in Burundi. This is
the type of issue the Interfaith Public Health Network wants to raise awareness
about: as Minister Onleilove Alston pointed out, in her religious tradition, it’s
not a sin to drink, but it’s a sin to commit injustice. And these injustices, involving government
collusion with multinational companies, is what’s contributing to poverty,
violence, despair and migration of our neighbors in many countries throughout the world, our common home.
It is hard to not be awed by the scale and tremendous care that goes into supporting the gigantic system bringing water to New York City and the surrounding counties. Flowing from the Catskill/Delaware Watersheds and the Croton Watershed, approximately one billion gallons of water are consumed in New York City every day, serving 8.5 million residents as well as millions of tourists each year. In all, the New York City Water Supply System provides nearly half the population of New York State with high-quality drinking water.
It is humbling to realize just how dependent all these millions of people are on the water supply functioning the way it is supposed to. Water constitutes about 50-70% of our bodies as human beings. Water from the reservoirs, aqueducts, and street-side sampling stations is quality tested by the Department of Environmental Protection’s scientists, with nearly 630,000 analyses performed on the samples in four state-of-the art laboratories (NYC DEP).
In my own tradition of Franciscan Catholicism, we are called to protect water as a component of creation care, protecting the Earth and our bodies as temples of God. Saint Francis of Assisi heard a call from God to “repair my house, which…is falling utterly into ruin.” While initially he took this as a call to repair a physical church, he eventually came to understand it as a call to repair the institutional Church and the universal house of God, the common home that we all share here on Earth. His spirituality grew to such depths that he came to regard Earth as Mother Earth, and water as Sister Water. By protecting water, we are protecting our health and that of our fellow sisters and brothers with whom we share the Earth. Unfortunately, in many places in the United States and across the world, oil spills from pipelines, contamination from hydraulic fracturing, and runoff from nuclear power plants and industrial agriculture threaten water supplies. Thus, I see the call to watershed discipleship as extremely important for people of faith.
Pope Francis explained the risks of water pollution in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, which many people of faith are using to make the case for why we should care for our common home. He dedicates a whole section of the encyclical to the issue of water – noting the importance of fresh water for healthcare, agriculture and industry; the prevalence of droughts and water poverty; the outbreak of water-related diseases among the poor; water pollution resulting from certain mining, farming and industrial activities; the phenomenon of water privatization by large multinational businesses; and the link between water scarcity and the cost of food and various products which depend on its use. He also notes, “access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right.”
Yet, my concern about water quality and safety stems not just from the threats modern society and corporate greed pose to water safety. I am also concerned because water is the healthiest drink. I work at Bronx Health REACH, which partners with school districts and a number of faith-based and community organizations to promote water as the best alternative to beverages of poor nutritional quality. In this work, it is necessary to make sure we can point to sources of safe drinking water if we want people to switch away from unhealthy drinks like sodas and drinks high in sugar.
First, I’ll share a little bit about why we are advocating for people to drink more water, and then share about other environmental and health concerns related to our water system. Finally, I’ll mention the work of a number of faith-based and community organizations in and around New York City that work to ensure there is safe drinking water, and that people are accessing it in healthy amounts.
Soda, sports drinks, fruit-flavored drinks, and other sugar-sweetened beverages may sound appealing and some drinks (such as sweetened teas) sometimes get marketed as “natural” and healthy. Society is swamped with marketing campaigns that make these consumer products sound appealing thanks to billion-dollar advertising budgets, but these products are contributing to high rates of diabetes, obesity, and other chronic diseases, with higher and higher rates of these diseases showing up in young children. In turn, this causes rising healthcare costs for dealing with these diseases.
In the Bronx, a third of adults consume at least one sugar-sweetened beverage per day, and over half of children do. A third of Bronx children are overweight or obese, as are two thirds of adults (NYC DOHMH).
Not only do sugar-sweetened beverages contribute to the desecration of our own bodies, but often the industrial processes used to create unhealthy beverages also place undue harm on the environment and make public water sources less and less accessible to the people who need them most. None of this is healthy for people or the economy, but these practices line the pockets of corporate executives. By infusing a sense of value on drinking water, Bronx Health REACH is working to ensure the continued safety of our water supplies.
In addition to drinking water directly, water is also used to grow food for our local food system. Some of us in the watershed are teaching children about growing food and getting local food into schools, restaurants, and churches. There is even a farm run by Catholic sisters who sell the produce to local parishes for use in farm shares, food pantries and soup kitchens. Bronx Health REACH has been instrumental in developing a “Bronx Salad” that encourages consumption of culturally relevant foods while also encouraging community members to grow some of the produce locally, such as in community gardens. A feature of this salad is the dressing made from the Bronx Hot Sauce, which is made by a local chef with peppers grown in the Bronx. A version of this salad is becoming increasingly available in NYC school cafeterias, thanks to a partnership between school gardening and Farm to School efforts in NYC. As we seek to develop a regional food system and reduce the environmental impact of our food system, we must also seek to protect the water supplies that nourish the crops.
While the water delivered to NYC is pristine and high quality, many New Yorkers remain skeptical of its safety. Therefore, I recently took a tour of the watershed that supplies water to NYC to learn just how safe the water is to drink. The watershed tour guide was immensely knowledgeable, and I became even more deeply aware of the tremendous gratitude and respect we owe to those who work around the clock to make sure that our water is safe. I gained an even greater understanding of the importance of ecology when learning about how the Department of Environmental Protection plants trees upstream from a river to help keep the water pure by filtering out toxins and impurities.
Despite the fact that high-quality water is delivered to NYC, I hear a lot of anecdotal concerns about water safety, at least in the Bronx. Legitimate concerns have been raised since water testing in NYC was examined more critically after the Flint water crisis. It turns out that the pipes bringing water into homes and schools are often old and made of lead, increasing the likelihood of lead leaching into our drinking water. Water samples from 2016-2017 found high levels of lead in some samples of NYC water delivered to schools, leading to outcries about the water’s safety. Even though the NYC Health Department affirms that no cases of lead poisoning have resulted from the high lead levels found in water, any level of lead that makes its way into our bodies is too much. We can reduce the likelihood of lead leaching into our water supply at the individual level by letting the water run before drinking it, only drinking water that comes out of the tap cold (since lead dissolves in hot water), or using special filters that remove lead.
Ideally, we could have well-funded public education campaigns about how to drink water safely, and to replace old pipes with non-lead pipes. But in order to get government and funders to prioritize water safety and public health, we need to tap into our internal spiritual wells, which drive us to improve the quality of life for all, and build increased momentum for the needed changes through advocacy and organizing.
A loose coalition of organizations in the New York City area partner to ensure a safe water supply and to encourage water consumption. Food & Water Watch has policy campaigns to improve pipe infrastructure. The New York City Health Department and Bronx Health REACH have campaigns to encourage water consumption and educate people about the health risks of sugar-sweetened beverages. Water2Kids is a business started by twin children in the Bronx (with the support of their mother) who wanted to see water — instead of sugar-sweetened beverages — marketed to their age group. Groups like Religious Organizations Along the River (ROAR), the Metro New York Catholic Climate Movement (a chapter of the Global Catholic Climate Movement), and the Center for Earth Ethics of Union Theological Seminary work to protect the New York water supply from projects that could threaten the safety of our water. Churches, including Franciscan and other Catholic parishes in NYC, organize film screenings about water and other environmental issues.
As interdependent creatures, human beings must rely on one another and our ecosystems in order to access the most basic of necessities required to sustain life on Earth. Because of our reliance on our watershed and other natural resources, ensuring our water sources remain uncontaminated is vitally essential and part of the call for us to steward creation. As we are interdependent with the Earth to meet our physical human needs, so the parts of the body of Christ are also interdependent with one another. We all need one another in order to make the impacts we want to make.
It can often feel overwhelming to try and address all of the overlapping and interconnected issues related to ensuring safe and healthy water and food supplies. However, as Wendell Berry says in the documentary Look and See: A Portrait of Wendell Berry, we must work on putting the pieces together one at a time, rather than all at once — such as starting with our own watershed. By taking bite-sized steps to address our ecological crisis while continuing to recognize the interconnectedness of issues and our interdependence with the local ecosystem, we can put faith in action by creating a livable, sustainable future for current and future generations.
Accompany. This word struck
me particularly as I finished reading “In the Company of the Poor:
Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez,” a book that makes
connections between global health and liberation theology. Dr. Farmer and Fr. Gustavo both share the
importance of accompanying the poor
in order to address a root cause of health disparities and the biggest scandal
of theology: poverty. When we accompany,
we start from a bottom-up approach and acknowledgement that we are called to
stand in solidarity with others because we are one. As Dr. Farmer reiterates
again and again, we do not live in “First World” and “Third World” countries;
we live in one world. An example of this
I learned when visiting San Diego recently is that there are pollution concerns
in San Diego travelling up the coast by air and water from Tijuana; wouldn’t
investment into the public health infrastructure in Tijuana lessen the burdens
not only of the Mexicans but also the Californians?
I am also struck by the world accompany for several other reasons. First, its root is “con pan” – with
bread. When we break bread with others,
we are standing – or eating – with one another in solidarity. When we can ensure that no one is excluded
from our table, but that there is bread for all, we are really living as if
everyone on earth is our kin. Next, this
is a word used by immigration activists, as immigrants benefit from having
people to accompany them to trials when they are facing deportation: immigrants are often treated more humanely
when accompanied by a U.S. citizen who recognizes their human dignity and knows
something of the danger that often awaits those who are forced back to their
home countries. Also, I found out that
there is a retreat within the Methodist/Protestant traditions that parallels
the Day by Day Agape (DDA) retreat I went on as a teenager at Capuchin Youth
& Family Ministries, that the Protestants call “A Walk with Emmaus.” The Emmaus Walk as I have come to experience
on my DDA and other retreats, is also one of accompaniment. It’s accompanying a fellow human being on
their walk with God – a shared experience that can be truly transformative for
both parties.
Accompaniment in the search for global health, food justice,
immigrant rights, spiritual discernment, or any other human journey has love for the other at its root in all
cases. It’s the same root as the
motivation of St. Francis of Assisi when he decided to embrace the leper on the
side of the road, and the same motivation that St. Francis spoke about when he
told a fellow friar “charity, not food” is what was important in the breaking
of bread with a hungry friar. Charity, that is, in the context of the original
meaning of the word it is derived from (caritas) – love for one’s
neighbor. In this holistic understanding
of the word charity, we come to
accompany our brothers and sisters in a way that honors their dignity rather
than sees them as recipients of handouts that does not allow them to have a
role in their own liberation. This type
of accompaniment has allowed Dr. Paul Farmer to build up the organization of
Partners in Health to have 13,000 employees, two thirds of them being local community
health workers, many former patients who many have never had a job in their
lives before. It’s an accompaniment that
sees people holistically, acknowledges the social determinants of health,
creates jobs, and helps people lift themselves out of poverty.
It’s this type of accompaniment we can use in building one
to one relationships when organizing for a goal, for those who seek to do something to manifest hope as an
alternative to the utter hopelessness we can feel in challenging situations
where we see so much suffering around us.
Fr. Gustavo speaks a good deal about hope amidst suffering, as well –
citing Jeremiah 32 and Job as influential Biblical texts to meditate upon.
Ultimately, it is especially up to those who have privilege
to decide to accompany those who suffer at the hand of unjust policies and
systems, recognizing that we can gain strength from the hope that lives in the
wells of our own and others’ experiences.
And of course, the person being accompanied must choose to be accompanied.
When we befriend those we accompany, the journey becomes a shared human
experience from which both people can benefit.
There has been oppression, corruption and war for millennia –
this, we know, is not something new. Jesus and other prophets have actively taught
means of interacting within corrupt systems to bring about Heaven on Earth. Many of these people, Jesus included, did
their ministry and prayer work in natural environments, and told parables that
led people to contemplate the natural world. Coming to these realizations
throughout my lifetime, I immediately recognized myself in the story of permaculture
expert Bill Mollison, as told by Fred Bahnson in Soil and Sacrament:
Mollison had grown up in a small
village in Tasmania, and became horrified as he saw fish stocks collapsing and
large sections of forest disappear. He began to protest against the political
and industrial systems that were to blame. ‘But,’ he wrote in Introduction
to Permaculture, ‘I soon decided that it was no good persisting with
opposition that in the end achieved nothing.’ For the next two years Mollison
withdrew from society. When he returned he realized he did not want to oppose
anything ever again and waste his time. He wanted to come back only with
something positive, ‘Something that would allow us all to exist without the
wholesale collapse of biological systems.’ What Mollison came back with was the
beginnings of permaculture, a ‘whole human system.’
I likewise decided early on to focus on building a holistic
system. Thus, my career has focused on nutrition, public health, and promoting
sustainable food systems whenever possible.What I’ve realized since the 2015 release of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si is that these ideas about
permaculture are very much in line with the concept of integral ecology.
We can use systems thinking to create an integrative food
system where food grown is connected with healthcare and mental health systems
and a more sustainable environment. We can put the systems in place to put Laudato Si into action. To do this, we
will need to educate, but we will also need to organize and advocate. While Bill Mollison may have chosen not to
oppose anything and Jesus did much of his ministry in the fields, we must also
remember that Jesus also flipped over the money tables in the temple.It’s clear in the Bible that man cannot serve
God and mammon, and that we shouldn’t worship the golden calf. Yet, that is
what so many corporations are doing now.
According to Citizens United, corporations are people – but of
course, we know that’s not true. We know the people making up the corporations
are people, not the corporations themselves. We also know it is not good to wish ill on the
people making up the corporations. It is good for them to have livable wages to
support themselves and their families, healthcare, and meaningful work. To make sure everyone has a fair chance for these necessary components of healthy
living, the people who are most enmeshed in corporate greed – amassing gross wealth
off the backs of the working poor – need to back off a good deal from their
possessions and materialism, and open up to more of a communal, humane way of
interacting with the marginalized.
With decent financial and human investment, we can create
more green jobs, include people affected by injustices in the decisionmaking
processes, and capture carbon back into the Earth to mitigate and prevent
catastrophic climate change. This is just as true in the Bronx as it is in
Harlem, as it is in the bayous of Louisiana, as it is in Haiti, and every other
place affected by environmental injustices.
In Soil
and Sacrament, Fred Bahnson also quotes Rainer Maria Rilke:
All will come again into its strength:
the fields undivided, the waters undammed,
the trees towering and the walls built low.
And in the valleys, people as strong
and as varied as the land.
What a vision of shalom!
When I read this I thought first of bringing shalom to Haiti, where the water has been dammed up leading to much
dry, barren land, exacerbated by deforestation due to the burning of wood for
cooking fires.It reminded me of the holistic
vision for restoration of this island nation that I’ve begun brainstorming with
several others over the past few months. But this prophetic poetic excerpt can
apply to anywhere we wish to restore with shalom
- God’s holistic peace.
So, how can we begin sharing the stories of people creating
a “new heaven and a new earth” and living out Laudato Si?When will we begin to create a truly holistic
system of integral ecology and shalom?
1Then I
saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband.3 And
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now
among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God
himself will be with them and be their God.4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There
will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of
things has passed away.” – Revelations 21: 1-4
Over 200 scientists identifying as evangelical Christians signed a letter that was released today calling on Congress to pass meaningful legislation to address climate change. This is remarkable evidence that science and religion should be seen as complementary. As Dr. John Roe and others have pointed out, "many see science itself as an integral part of God's plan for the world." The evangelical climate change letter is part of Sojourners' creation care campaign, which calls on our moral obligation to care for God's creation.
I've been thinking more and more about the term "creation care" since I attended the National Mobilizing Circle training at Sojourners last summer where we had invigorating discussions about climate change and environmental justice. More recently, I've started thinking about creation care from a Franciscan perspective. Through the eyes of St. Francis of Assisi, the divine is found in all of creation, and we all exist in interdependence with the rest of creation. Using this rationale, human beings not above or below the other parts of creation - the land, the oceans, the plants, and the animals. And as Lisa Sharon Harper has pointed out, the Hebrew words of Genesis 1 tell us that it is the ties between things that are "forcefully good." If we live in right relationship with the rest of creation, there is justice and peace in the world. But when we don't live in right relationship with the world, injustices abound, and the health of people and the earth suffers.
If you're not yet completely sold on the idea of our absolute interdependence with the rest of creation, perhaps some discussion would help. Through the leadership of 200 evangelical scientists, we've established the scientific underpinnings of climate change are real and this constitutes a moral imperative to care for creation. And the industrial food system is intricately connected with climate change, as I've demonstrated here. The industrial food system is also connected to such injustices as hunger and health issues, with a billion hungry and a billion overweight people in the world. Most of these people suffer because they can't afford healthy food to nourish their bodies. This results from economic injustices such as a failure to pay workers living wages which would allow them to afford the food they need to live a healthy lifestyle. Plus, many of the world's hungry are actually the farmers who grow our food; because of corrupt governments and corporate agreements, land is pulled out from under people all the time through land grabs, thereby exacerbating food security issues. And when people can't afford food and don't have access to the land and water needed to grow food, turmoil and war often results, leading to more unnecessary casualties. On the flipside, people who only have access to nutrient-poor, calorie-dense foods tend to develop diet-related diseases which wind up costing us billions of dollars in healthcare - unnecessary costs which drain our wallets and exhaust our economy.
So when it comes down to it, when we don't care for the earth and each other and nourish ourselves with the exquisite bounty that our Creator has provided for us, we destroy our health and the earth's health, and it leads to a mess of social injustices which exacerbate the health issues. But when we learn to see ourselves as part of creation that needs to be cared for and create the conditions and supportive environments in which people can lead healthy lives, we can impact the social determinants of health and improve the health of all of creation.
On February 7th, Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo, and Bronx Borough President Diaz announced a deal that provides FreshDirect with $127.8 million in taxpayer money to subsidize a relocation of FreshDirect’s headquarters from Long Island City to the Harlem Rail Yard on the South Bronx waterfront. Two days later, the NYC Industrial Development Agency (IDA) held a hearing on the FreshDirect deal to give provide community members with an opportunity to voice their opinions before the deal was sealed. South Bronx residents have real concerns about the impact of the FreshDirect deal on the environment, promised job creation, living wages, acceptance of EBT (food stamps), and the inaccessibility of FreshDirect services to South Bronx residents. Residents came together under the title of “South Bronx Unite: Stop FreshDirect” to speak out against the deal. South Bronx Unite members have created quite a buzz within the city, raising awareness about the city’s failure to provide community members with a real opportunity to voice their opinions before the deal was decided upon. South Bronx Unite members have created social media outlets (blog, facebook and twitter) to get the word out about their disapproval of the FreshDirect deal. There has even been a Change.org petition created to stop FreshDirect from building its new headquarters in the South Bronx.
The opposition to the FreshDirect deal has been covered in media outlets all over the city, from El Diario to the New York Times. New York City Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito and NYC Comptroller John Liu have both publicly expressed their disapproval of the FreshDirect. Despite the opposition to the deal, the IDA held its board meeting on February 14th – which was attended by members of South Bronx Unite – and the FreshDirect subsidy deal was voted on in the affirmative by all parties present except Comptroller Liu. South Bronx Unite members are demanding to see the Environmental Impact Assessment conducted on the Harlem Rail Yards; for the City Council to demand oversight hearings of the NYC Economic Development Corporation; and for NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to audit the Harlem River Rail Yards deal. South Bronx Unite members would also like to see Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz hold a public meeting where all South Bronx residents would be invited to express their concerns.
These concerns are real ones, too. While the Bronx Borough President put together a Memorandum of Understanding to try and address the concerns of South Bronx residents, the MOU is non-binding and does not adequately address the concerns:
·Lack of democracy: Since the very beginning, there was a lack of a true democratic process that would provide community members with enough time to express their opinions before the decision was made.
·Environmental Impact: There has not been an adequate environmental impact assessment conducted on the site, nor has any environmental impact analysis been provided to members of South Bronx Unite. The promise of using a small number of alternative fuel vehicles doesn’t adequately address the concerns of having an additional 130 trucks per day on the road in the South Bronx – already home to highest asthma rates in the country – nor the increased truck emissions that would come from the removal of more than 380 tons of solid waste per month.
·Job creation: FreshDirect is promising that almost 1000 jobs will be created over the next 10 years, which may sound like good news to Bronx county with some of the highest poverty rates in the nation. But there are no written guarantees to ensure that a certain number of these jobs will be provided to South Bronx residents. Further, past recipients of IDA subsidies have not have a good track record of holding true to promised job creation: ALIGN – the Alliance for a Greater New York – has reviewed the State Comptroller’s data and found that for the NYC IDA: “Only eight of the 23 IDA subsidized projects that ended in 2009 met or exceeded their job creation promises.” In addition, the amount of money being provided through the subsidy deal is out of proportion compared to the amount of money given for job creation in previous deals. According to Comptroller John C. Liu’s office, “A few months ago, the EDC attracted a world-class university by promising $100 million in capital for a project that by their own estimate will generate 30,000 jobs. Now the EDC is giving close to $100 million to create 962 jobs. The cost to the City is $93,000 for each new job.”
·Living Wages: While nearly 40% of current FreshDirect employees make less than $25,000/year, FreshDirect would be exempted from any local living wage mandates adopted by the city. According to the New York Times – City Room, “As it stands, the city will pour about $130 million into a modestly profitable company over a decade without requiring that it pay more than $9 an hour to workers who labor in frigid warehouses hauling 50-pound boxes. The workers get less than two weeks off a year, and that includes sick, personal and vacation days.”
·Labor Practices: As described in South Bronx Unite’s message to the NYS Attorney General, NYC Comptroller, Bronx Borough President, NYC Economic Development Corporation, Empire State Development, and NYS Energy Research and Development Authority: “Numerous complaints have been filed with city, state and federal agencies regarding FreshDirect’s labor practices, including 27 discrimination and nine unfair labor claims against FreshDirect in the last four years alone. The description of wages and employment in FreshDirect’s NYCIDA application fails to provide taxpayers with enough information to gauge the quality of jobs, including with respect to salary or how many jobs are part-time or full-time.”
·Acceptance of EBT: As pointed out by Joel Berg of the NYC Coalition Against Hunger, the MOU does not identify FreshDirect as officially agreeing to accept food stamps: “Fresh Direct previously sought to accept food stamps, had been prevented by doing do by "the State", and that Fresh Direct and the Bronx BP would work together to ‘continue these efforts’ to try to get accept food stamps through EBT. Unfortunately, Fresh Direct's story that they were prevented from accepting food stamps by "the State" is likely untrue. Under federal law, only USDA, not any state, has the power to decide which retailers can or cannot accept food stamps.”
·Servicing the South Bronx: FreshDirect has never and currently does not serve the South Bronx – only the wealthier areas of the Bronx such as Riverdale. FreshDirect has only discussed expanding to “new Bronx neighborhoods.” The Bronx Borough President’s office created a facebook page to “illustrate to the company just how many Bronx residents are willing to not only use their service, but have the technical capabilities to do so.” (FreshDirect is an entirely online grocery ordering and delivery system. As the Bronx includes one of the poorest Congressional districts in the nation, many residents do not have readily available Internet access.) So far, the Borough President’s facebook page has accumulated more opposition than support for the FreshDirect deal. So has a Crain’s poll.
·Misuse of public land: As described by South Bronx Unite, “The proposed site at the Harlem River Yards in The Bronx is owned by New York State Department of Transportation and has been leased for 99 years to Harlem River Yard Ventures II (HRYV), which is 95% owned by the Galesi Group. The purpose of the Harlem River Yards project (together with its partner project, the Oak Point Link) was to reduce air pollution by decreasing truck traffic and to help avoid $500 million in public road improvements through development of a Full Freight Access Program, which has not been developed in the more than 20 years that HRYV has held the lease. Instead, the Bronx community has had 1.9 miles of waterfront made inaccessible to the public.”
·Greenway and Waterfront Access: As described in South Bronx Unite’s message to the Borough President, “Harlem River Yards is essential to a Harlem River Greenway as a necessary Bronx West - East connection from High Bridge and the Harlem River Greenway to the South Bronx Greenway and Randall’s Island. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has been negotiating for some time with HRYV to create access to a pedestrian bridge, currently under construction, that will link the South Bronx Greenway to Randall’s Island and then to Queens and Manhattan (the “Connector”). The Connector will provide a safe and legal means to cross an important waterway that unites the Bronx with the open space and green playing fields of Randall’s Island. EDC is now granting more than $100 million in public subsidies to FreshDirect, some of which will be allocated to Harlem River Yards, when HRVY has so far refused to grant an easement to complete the vital Connector project through the Harlem River Yards. Equitable land use, in accordance with the public trust doctrine, includes meaningful waterfront access and recreational opportunities in addition to the swift completion of the Connector.”
With all of these concerns, members of “South Bronx Unite” would prefer “a community-led development plan that makes efficient use of nearly 100 acres of public waterfront land and incorporates sustainable development, living wage jobs, clean air and waterfront access for South Bronx residents.”
A Better Solution
As for improving access to healthy food, landlord and developer Steve Smith has crafted a vision for a regional food campus at Oak Point in the South Bronx, that would provide access to “locally grown, locally raised, locally made” food for South Bronx residents and the larger NYC area. While the plans are still under development, Paul Lipson, consultant to the project, presented at Bronx Health REACH’s February 2012 Nutrition and Fitness Workgroup meeting. Here's the story: A 2003 study gauged the unmet demand for local and regional agricultural products at upwards of $1 billion in the New York metropolitan areas. The proposed 130,000 sq ft regional food hub would house GrowNYC’s Wholesale Farmers Market and would serve as a non-profit aggregator of growers so upstate and regional growers can have a space to access markets. There would be an opportunity for store owners and community members to access produce directly. Co-located next to the largest wholesale grocery and restaurant supplier in the New York metro area, it would be convenient for middlemen and store and restaurant owners to do all their shopping in one location. The operation could include a “market within a market” allowing products to be sold directly to Jetro and Restaurant Depo, as well as bodegas, small to medium-sized grocery stores, and small (10-20 table) restaurants.
Plans include a kitchen on the second floor, which would create many jobs for artisanal food manufacturing. They would also like to create a wash and chop facility – something sorely needed in the city – which would allow everyone – from bodegas to institutions such as the NYC Department of Education Office of SchoolFood – to make more direct use of local produce.
Smith hopes to add a rooftop hydroponic greenhouse operation serving grocery and grocery delivery chains in the New York metro area; an agricultural cooperative aggregating over 60 regional growers and producers; a borough-based brewer of beers and ales (the Bronx Brewery currently brews in Connecticut); a Bronx-based caterer and institutional food service providing meals for charter schools and senior centers; and a produce distributor serving NY metro area.
Moreover, this project would save a lot on carbon emissions, fuel and transportation costs due to streamlining of operations and logistics. Individual farmers would not have to send their trucks to the city, but rather the Oak Point facility could send its trucks to them to pick up their produce and then deliver “tropicals” and other items available only in the city to them on the return trip.
Located on 9.6 waterfront acres, a ½ mile east of the Triborough Bridge and ½ west of the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center, there would be rail and deep water access, thus creating a means for a true regional food hub.
This whole project is dependent on subsidies – albeit, a tenth of the price of the subsidies the City is planning on giving to FreshDirect. While it may not “promise” as many jobs as the FreshDirect deal, the jobs would provide workers with living wages, and the regional food campus would have many benefits and implication for public health, including air quality benefits, improvements to institutional food, etc.
Steve Smith and Paul Lipson are currently looking to connect with small food businesses and growers cooperatives that would like to share a food kitchen. They are seeking support from the City Council and other elected officials to provide public subsidies for the project. Paul can be reached at paul (at) barrettobay (dot) com
